


No Rest For The Wicked

by flye



Category: DCU, The Flash (TV 2014), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Barry Allen, Barry Allen Needs a Hug, Barry and Len team up to stop a serial killer, Barry is still a CSI, Canon-Typical Violence, Cop!Len, Fluff? What's that?, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I have no soul, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Probably will remind you of every detective thriller you've ever seen/read, Serial Killers, Slow Burn, Some Humor, Things just spiral out of control from that, and a therapist, just the one, protective Len, the main antagonist is so extra it hurts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-06 21:32:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11609364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flye/pseuds/flye
Summary: "He's toying with us." Barry said, not even a question but a horrified statement. His eyebrows knitted together as he stared down at the bloody corpse of the latest victim.Len nodded, his face pale, jaw tight. He didn't want to believe it."This is just some... Some sickgameto him." Barry continued, and disgust twisted his features. Len wished nothing more than to smooth all of Barry's angry creases away, to calm him down and to tell him that everything was going to be alright, that they were going to be fine.He did none of those things. Instead, he put a hand on his partner's shoulder, squeezing it softly as comfort. "Barry, we need to go. It's not safe here.""Hekilledthem." Barry insisted, gritting his teeth. "Hemurderedthem in coldblood.""Barry, let's go." He said softly, and the younger man finally lifted his gaze from the corpse to meet his. "We'll get him. Trust me, Barry."Barry nodded, accepting Len's hand before getting on his feet. He spared a last glance at the writing on the wall. His blood still ran cold as he let his gaze slip over the scarlet text."No rest for the Wicked"





	No Rest For The Wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note the time stamp, please.
> 
> Some gory descriptions of a crime scene... You've been warned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this is indeed a new series. I will still be writing Flashes of Cold -- don't worry -- but this has been sitting in my drafts for almost a month now and it'll be deleted in a couple of days if I don't post it, so... I posted it. I will continue with this, this will be finished (at some point). Beware that it's quite gruesome (and slow burn) so, haha, expect no fluff whatsoever in this. xD
> 
> This will take place on a lot of different dates and times, so make sure to note the time stamps on every chapter, etc. Sometimes we might skip back or forward several weeks so if you don't pay attention you will be very confused. Other than that; enjoy! ^^

**Tuesday, October 3rd 2017, 9AM**

Leonard Snart had seen many things in his career as a homicide detective. Gruesome sights of gore and horror, things that would give almost any other man nightmares for life. Things that could drive you insane, if you thought about them too much.

But nothing in his whole career could prepare him for _this_.

The corpse was lying face down in an abandoned apartment building, the stench told him that it had been doing so for quite a long while. The whole place was filled with grime. Dust and dirt and human remains.

Always a pleasing mix, right?

The blood spatter on the walls were... Impressive, to say the least. Len couldn't help but wonder what kind of injury it would have to be for it to have splattered like that, as he lifted a hand to cover his nose. He looked at the splatter, at the dust and the grime. He looked at anything and anyone... As long as he didn't have to look at the body. _Anywhere_ but the body. If you could even call it that. Len couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman from the way it looked. It had been so horribly mutilated, stabbed repeatedly it seemed, that it was hardly even recognizable as _human_.

By said corpse sat a young man. Len let his gaze shift to him instead, to his determined and focused frown, his soft hair and his beautiful hazel eyes. He let himself gaze at this man -- at _Barry Allen_ \-- and wish that the way they had met wasn't as gruesome and horrid as it was. He wished that he didn't have to be at a crime scene every time they saw each other. That they could meet _outside_ of work. Get a coffee, talk about sports or something. Len honestly didn't care, as long as it wasn't _murder._

Barry hadn't noticed his presence yet. It usually was like that, Barry would be slouching over a corpse - or some other type of evidence, he'd be so focused on his work that by the time Len arrived he would be in a completely different world. Len wondered how he could even _focus_ with this stench. But nonetheless, he walked up to his colleague, putting a hand on his shoulder to help his balance as he kneeled down next to him.

Barry looked up at him, slight confusion written on his face due to the surprise touch.

"Len." He acknowledged, returning his attention to the gross heap of rotten meat before him when Len lifted his hand off of his shoulder.

"Barry." Len replied, a little disappointed with the lack of a positive response from his partner. Then again, the kid never _did_ like him all that much. At least he called him Len nowadays, in stead of the godawful way he used to say Snart in the beginning.

Len had honestly never disliked his surname more than when he had first gotten to know Barry. The _way_ he used to say it was unbearable. He used to sound almost disgusted, like Len's name tasted bad in his mouth when he spoke it, like it was a poison.

Len never did figure out why Barry pronounced his name like that. But when Len had asked him to stop using his surname, asked him to call him _Len_ , Barry had agreed to it. The venom in his voice had gone away when he spoke Len's name. Just like that.

He'd asked Barry once, but he'd said that it was nothing. That he was imagining things. Len knew that wasn't it, he couldn't _imagine_ someone spitting his name out like a curse word like that. But if Barry didn't want to share, then Len wasn't going to force him to.

"What are we looking at?" Len asked, voice soft. 

Barry sighed, a hollow sound, like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He seemed stressed, Len _knew_ he was stressed. He'd felt it when he grabbed Barry's shoulder, he could feel the tenseness. But then again, anybody would be stressed with what they had at hand.

"She's been dead for around two months, I'm guessing around seven to eight weeks... Due to the, uh, _liquidation_ of the body..." Barry started, a green hue to his face, and Len's brows furrowed at his words.

"She?"

Barry nodded. "Yeah. She, uh, she was stabbed -- repeatedly -- in the chest, abdomen, neck, and face. All over her upper body, basically." He continued, looking like somebody had just kicked a puppy as he pointed at the different areas of the poor woman's corpse. "And then her neck was slashed, from behind -- right to left."

"Any defensive wounds?"

To his horror, Barry nodded. "She was tied up, see?" He put a gloved hand on the corpse's tied together wrists, and then looked directly at Len. His world stopped for a few moments as his eyes were locked with Barry's.

"There are signs that she was struggling with the ropes. Due to the amount of blood there is, she was alive when she was stabbed... Most likely she was awake for the attack."

Len shuddered at the prospect. He wouldn't wish for this to happen to his worst enemy. "She must've been so afraid..." He almost whispered, and Barry nodded jerkily.

"Yeah..."

They sat together for a few minutes, Barry continued to collect some evidence and snap pictures of the body whilst Len just thought - the one thing you shouldn't do at a crime scene like this. He could hear Barry's shallow breath's beside him - breathing through his mouth due to the stench, he imagined - and every now and then Barry's shoulder would accidentally bump into Len's as he moved around slightly to reach over the body, or get another angle with the camera.

Len tried not to think about the electrical sparks that seemed to fly whenever Barry's shoulder touched his. 

"Do you think it's him...?" Len finally asked, after several minutes of thoughtful silence, Barry hummed in thought before replying.

"Yeah I- I think so, yeah."

Len sighed, pulling a hand over his face as he drew in a shaky breath. "There's no message." 

"This was his first." Barry just replied, voice cold and steady - like he was trying to remain calm, but Len could hear the fear and the sadness in his voice. "He didn't have his gimmick yet, then."

"You think this was planned?" Len just asked, looking over the gruesome scene again, taking in the horrors that it showed.

Barry just shook his head. "No... No this was a crime of passion. Of _hatred_." He said, voice low and tinted with a disbelieving anger.

Len exhaled deeply as he rose to his feet, running a hand over his head as he spoke. "So this is where it all began, huh?"

Barry sat still where he was, looking over the dead woman with sadness and hurt in his eye.

"Yeah, this is where the Fortnight Slasher came to be... Where he first killed."

_____

"And there was no sign of the murder weapon?" Joe sighed, flipping through the newly developed crime scene pictures at the precinct while Barry was watching him silently.

Barry shook his head. "No, but according to the coroner the wounds match up with the knife assumed to have been used after the third murder."

Joe looked up from the gruesome photos to meet Barry's gaze. "So it _is_ him, then? It's confirmed?"

"It's confirmed, alright." Came a voice from behind them, and both men turned around to see Len walk up to them, face grim and a piece of paper in his hand.

"Snart! Whatcha have there?" Joe asked, nodding at the paper. But they all knew the question was more rhetorical than anything else.

"He sent us a note, just now." Len replied, his voice strained. Barry gulped as he saw Joe put on a pair of gloves before taking the document from Len and read it through. Joe's face became three shades paler, as if all the blood in his face had suddenly retreated, as he read the note. When he'd finished reading it - several times over - he handed it to Barry in silence.

Barry accepted the paper, trying to feel if the paper was the same as the ones used in previous notes through his rubber gloves. He let his gaze slip over the note, not yet reading it, and shuddered at the scarlet text on it. 

It was written in blood.

They always were, usually in the victim's - but this time he imagined it was somebody else's. He closed his eyes and sighed deeply, trying to collect the courage needed to read through the note. He then opened his eyes, a determined look in them as he finally read the note.

He almost wished he hadn't.

__

_"A little birdie whispered in my ear that you've found her."_

The letter started, and Barry couldn't help but to hitch a breath at the possible meaning of those words. A _little birdie?_ Did they have a mole?

_  
"Seems the little birdie was right. I guess I'll have to thank them, I think I'll do it within the next fortnight."_

Barry sighed. This wasn't good. They couldn't, for sure, know what that meant. That could mean a number of things, namely. It could mean that he was going to kill whoever this 'little birdie' was, or that he'd kill someone who had something to do with them or--

Or it could mean something completely different. They had _no way_ of knowing... Until it was too late.

_  
"I've left you a gift. I hope that you'll like it, it's carefully wrapped, in a nice little package."_

_"I've left it for you, I'm sure you know where, and when you'll see it -- it'll give you a scare."_

Barry wasn't certain to whom exactly the Fortnight Slasher was talking to. It never was that evident, namely. It was as if he was talking to whoever was currently reading his letter, usually, but this time he seemed to be speaking to someone specific.

It didn't take a genius to figure out it was probably the lead on the case -- _Len_.

_"I've been meaning to chat, I'll soon tell you when, but when we do--"_

_  
"--make sure to bring Allen."  
_

Barry's breath hitched in his throat at the words on the paper. He read them again, and again -- and _again_. Desperately trying to find some other meaning behind them, a meaning that didn't have anything to do with _him_... But to no avail. However way he twisted and turned the paper, the message remained the same.

The Fortnight Slasher was interested in meeting Barry. That could _not_ be good. Barry glanced at the final row of the letter, at the signature, and sighed at the familiar phrase. The phrase that had almost earned the Fortnight Slasher a different name to begin with, but after some time the papers seemed to have decided that the Fortnight Slasher was, in fact, a better name for him.

_  
**"No rest for the Wicked"** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it so far! Tell me if you want me to continue with this, what you liked, what you didn't like, what you would want to see in the future... In short: Tell me what you think! :D


End file.
